The families of the minister and the refugee meet for supper in a steakhouse in Aurora. They had not seen each other for more than a decade, though this did not seem possible to them, any more than it seemed possible that it has been 50 years since they first met.

June 28, 1962. The door of a plane holding Cuban political refugees opens, and out pops a girl, 9 years old, who stands at the top of the steps and looks around and then descends halfway before stopping to look again. What would this place bring? Denver. Colorado. The West. What did Cubans still carrying the scent of the Caribbean know of that?

“It’s where cowboys and Indians live,” her mother said.

The minister was waiting at the airport. His Methodist congregation was sponsoring the family. “I suppose it would be good to have lunch when we return,” he told his wife before he left. “What do Cubans eat?” they wondered. They decided upon Mexican food.

Later that evening, another family in the congregation would prepare supper. Chicken pot pie. The girl had never heard of chicken pot pie.

The girl would grow up to become known in Denver as Maria Garcia Berry, an influential political consultant. She arranged the reunion Tuesday. Because it has been 50 years. Because her mother, Esther, is 81, and the reverend, Walter Boigegrain, and his wife, Patricia, are a few years older than that, and the reverend has had health problems. Although the Boigegrains live in Grand Junction, she did not know when they would all meet again, and it felt important to repeat: Thank you. We could not have done this without you.

“What I love about what they did was the purity of it,” Maria says. “How many people today would do what they did? They said, ‘We want to make a difference in someone’s life.’ They took us in. We lived in their basement for two months.”

The decision to sponsor a Cuban family, an answer to a national call, was made by the congregation of Westminster United Methodist Church, Boigegrain says. “I didn’t do it. We did it.” The church was not large or wealthy, but full of families with young children and obligations of their own. Where would the family live? How much can we afford to help with rent? How will they get around? Who will introduce them to the workforce? Who will see the children get educated?

The Boigegrains started putting up walls in their basement, which they had once used as the church sanctuary. The reverend, his wife and three children would live upstairs, and Maria’s family — including dad Segundo, mom Esther and Grandma — would live downstairs.

“The Second World War had ended, and the boys came home and established families and moved out to the suburbs,” Patricia says. “Because of their experience in war, they had a renewed interest in religion. They were against communism. When the call came — look what this oppressor in Cuba is doing — they answered. They didn’t have a whole lot, but they wanted to help.”

It was, then, an embrace of the refugee not only as a Christian duty, but a patriotic one. We will take you in. We will help you learn English and find work and enroll your children in school. We will open the door to opportunity here, but you must walk through yourselves. You will become part of our family and we of yours.

And that is what happened. Patricia remembers Segundo coming home from construction work, his hands torn apart. He was an accountant in Cuba. He died of a heart attack while still in his 40s. They remember the English lessons around the kitchen table and the Methodist congregation’s rapid conversion to Esther’s arroz con pollo and how Patricia taught Esther to drive. The lessons ended after Pat told her to hit the brakes and Esther responded, “Where are the brakes?”

It was an intense, joyful time, says Walter, who listens to the conversation with an amused expression. “It was good.” “It was the best,” the Boigegrains’ daughter, Becky, says. “We were in it together. It was a more trusting time. … My parents had a mission, and the community supported them and they ran with it.”

“I only have one more thing I can say,” Esther says. “Thank you.”

Westminster United Methodist Church still stands at the corner of West 76th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard. Maria went to the website recently and learned the church is now home to three congregations of four languages: English, Hebrew, Hmong and Spanish. It pleased her. The church’s outreach to newcomers continues. The family still grows.

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